


Empty Coffee Pot

by AdamantSteve



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Young Avengers
Genre: F/M, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 00:11:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdamantSteve/pseuds/AdamantSteve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate Bishop has a crush and it's kind of mortifying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Coffee Pot

**Author's Note:**

> I'm quite nervous about posting this because I've never written Kate Bishop before so please be kind. 
> 
> Beta read by Dunicha.

Clint Barton's a mistake. 

 

Kate's not an idiot, really, she's not. Except she is, because she knows herself well enough to realise she shouldn't be doing what she's doing. And she's doing it anyway.

 

Clint's apartment smells like him, which is an indistinct sort of smell that Kate's way too fond of. It's a crush, and it's at the point where she can admit that much to herself, which ought to make it easier to deal with, but all it does is make it worse because now that she's figured out what it is that keeps bringing her to this crappy apartment, it all starts to feel like it _means_ something.

 

He has a hickey on his neck when he comes downstairs, scratching his scalp with no idea what he's doing to her. "Oh. You're here. What's up?"

Kate doesn't have a good answer for why she's there uninvited, reading old comics on the couch so she shrugs. “Bored.”

Usually Clint's sharp enough to call her on her bullshit, but he just shuffles to the kitchenette and huffs at the empty coffee pot. The same coffee pot Kate stopped herself from filling earlier, because that would be obvious and she doesn't want to be obvious, because how pathetic would it be to get called out on having a schoolgirl crush by the crushee himself?

 

Kate puts her feet up on the coffee table. At her own house she'd be tsked at for being so louche, but Clint doesn't care: the table's made out of cinder blocks and an old door. Even if it wasn't, she doubts he'd be bothered.

 

She looks over the back of the couch to see Clint bending down, looking in the fridge for something. Maybe that's one of the few bonuses of having admitted her crush (if only to herself): unlimited ogling. Well, it's limited by circumstance, but she's not telling herself that it's the straps on Clint's pants or the cut of his shirt she's checking out when she watches him move around anymore. 

 

There are other people she should be looking at - aliens and magic weirdos and cute boys at school - but that's just it, they're boys. Clint's an idiot, sure, even Kate can see that, but he's a _man_. His lack of an excuse for things is kind of awesome in it's way. No. It's not, it's really not awesome at all, and academically she knows this, but it's another part of her entirely that's watching Clint shift his hips to reach into the back of the fridge and then stand to reach for a frying pan. 

 

"You want eggs?" he asks, his back still turned, and no, she doesn't even really like eggs, but she says yes anyway. Clint looks over his shoulder, and Kate mentally kicks herself for ever getting in as deep as she's gotten, because his _shoulders_. She doesn’t know anyone with shoulders (or arms, don’t forget the arms) like that. Well, perhaps Teddy but that’s not quite the same. Clint’s got scars and marks and ubiquitous bandages from whatever mess he’s gotten into most recently, and it’s so utterly juvenile that Kate hates herself for being so cliche but she _loves_ it.

 

"Scrambled?" 

 

She shrugs. "Whatever," and then watches the way his back moves under his thin tshirt as he whisks and grinds pepper and whatever the hell else he does. 

 

She goes back to the comic - a cheesy love story thing that has no place in Clint Barton's apartment, and she wonders where it came from, not asking in case it belongs to a girl. No, a _woman_. Not that she’s not one herself, but she’s pretty sure Clint doesn’t put her in the same category as the women he’s brought back here on purpose. No, Kate’s in another part of the pie chart of Clint Barton’s life. Girl, friend, kid, person who lets herself in unannounced. Fellow archery-enthusiast.

 

But then she can't get the idea out of her mind and asks anyway, holding up the comic. 

"Uh..." he says, trailing off and scratching his scalp again. "Someone sent them." 

"You don't know who?" 

He shrugs and looks away, a crappy liar any day of the week. But something about that makes Kate turn her head away so she can privately smile that he'd lie to her about it. Like maybe he gives a shit after all. 

"The same person who gave you that hickey?" 

She doesn't know why she says it, and can feel some kind of blush start to crawl up her neck, but Clint doesn't see it because he's got his face turned away and his hand covering the mark. It's just for a second and then he's snorting and joking that she's just jealous, which of course she is, but she laughs and rolls her eyes like she couldn't care less.

 

The eggs are good and they don't mean anything. Kate wouldn't want them to, because Clint Barton meaning things is a mistake. But then he bends down again and she figures maybe this a good a time as any to be making mistakes after all.

 


End file.
